


Paper Sails

by SnowmanBiscuit



Category: Bastion (Video Game), Transistor (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Dream Sharing, Gen, Introspection, POV Second Person, implications of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-11
Updated: 2019-07-11
Packaged: 2020-06-26 15:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19771027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnowmanBiscuit/pseuds/SnowmanBiscuit
Summary: Birds of a feather flock together, even across different worlds.





	Paper Sails

The dream starts out like any other day. The ground rises to meet your feet, forcing you on a trail that only the world remembers. It reminds you of the people that you talked to during your time on the Walls. People who had worked there longer, people who had worked farther. They talked about feeling things where there wasn’t anything anymore.

You could understand. You’ve never lost body parts like they have but you can understand.

You wonder if the paths that form are the world’s way of feeling the same way.

It’s barely noticeable when the ground begins to change. It shifts in patches first, from the dirt and grass and marsh that you’re used to, to something almost like glass. It’s unnaturally smooth and sectioned into perfect squares, patterns chasing underneath you in right angles and sharp turns. It’s not until the thunder-like clapping of your feet reaches your ears that you realize that you have no idea where you are.

Buildings stretch impossibly high as if to stab the sky. The sky itself is a worrying pallor of green and white. As pretty as it is, you worry that it’s a sign of the Calamity’s second coming. Everything around you is blocky, corners unworn by time or weather, meticulously patterned and positioned. Your reflection flits off of hundreds of surfaces of metal and glass like a maze of mirrors.

There are no sounds of animals. There is no feeling of wind. You can’t see the sun but the lamps light it all bright as day. Everywhere is as empty as you’ve come to expect. Still, it makes you feel small and in a way that’s foreign to you.

Maybe that’s why it’s so startling when you hear the scraping sound of something heavy being dragged. It echoes through the streets and alleys, coming closer but you’re not sure from where. It’s only at the sharp gasp that you’re able to find the source.

Her hair is red as blood on snow, matching a pale complexion. She's tall, much taller than anyone you’ve ever met. Her yellow dress is in tatters and she’s wearing a jacket two sizes too large. In her hands is a monstrosity of a sword, crystal blue with blunt edges and much too large to be used practically. Her hands, red and abraded but not calloused, tell of someone not used to the labour you’re familiar with.

Neither of you speak, for different reasons. But that’s the nice thing about dreams. You don’t know why but you understand, and you don’t ask questions about it.

You ask for her name. She answers, “Red”. You tell her you’re just some Kid, so that’s what you’re called.

You ask where you are. She answers, “Cloudbank”.

You’ve never heard of a place called Cloudbank. Is it in Caelondia? Is it in Ura?

She says no, she’s never heard of those places.

You’re confused, but only for a moment. You ask her to return to the Bastion with you; survivors are rare, so it seems to you. So it seems to her as well, seeing how surprised she is. But she seems reluctant.

She needs to stay here. She needs to find answers for all that has happened. Agreeing, you say that you are as well. But it isn’t safe here. Whatever answers lead to the root of the Calamity, it has to be looked for when one is prepared. Eventually, she concedes.

Besides, the Bastion is nice. As you say so, the scenery shifts again. The sky is blue as you remember it. Clouds hover around. The cobbled-together architecture of the Bastion smell of earth and rain. Rucks, Zia and Zulf are talking together over cutting boards and Zia’s stockpot. You hear the three of them laughing.

Red is looking around as though you took her to the moon. You introduce her to the others; they smile and nod. You don’t question it.

You show her around the Bastion. Not a terribly big place but it’s cozy and it’s yours and your friends’. You introduce her to the squirt, pecker, anklegator and Pyth statue. She asks if these are kinds of Processes. You’re not sure what she means.

She explains but you can’t quite make heads or tails of what she’s saying. You get the impression that her Calamity is different from yours and the rest. But something happened all the same and regardless of the specifics, you’re both left in an empty world.

Since you showed her your home, she ought to show you hers. She turns around and all the sudden you’re in a room, staring out the window at the strange city with the green sky. Except this time, the sky is peach-pink and –orange.

The room has patterned walls and painted furniture, draperies and little bits and bobs. It’s all as symmetrically square and round as everything outside is. The two of you take a place at the table.

You notice the bitter, empty void emanating from the third chair present. It reminds you of when you left the Walls and came home to your mother’s bed. But Red doesn’t even spare the space a glance. She says she ordered flatbread earlier, but it’s likely gone cold by now.

You’re reminded of the others’ cooking. You offer an extra seat at the Bastion to her, though you express the impression that their availability of foodstuff would be… more dubious to her. She laughs and rightfully declines.

The flatbread is one of the best things you’ve ever tasted but it’s rather rich. For a stomach such as yours, used to rations and what little could be scrounged up or grown, it’s a bit much. Even the water she gives you tastes different, though in what way you can’t quite place. Maybe it’s just because you’ve gotten used to spirits.

Speaking of spirits, the thought makes you rescind your earlier reservations about sharing your own foodstuff. A small glass of hearty punch materializes on the table and you invite her to it.

You’re not sure what to compare her face colour to, her hair or the punch. She’s coughing and waving her hand in front of her face, choking out a comment at the strength of the flavor. You can’t help but laugh, reminded of the first time you had it. It took a while for you to be able to drink it without watering it down with something else.

You push a different glass of Bastion bourbon to her out of sympathy. She takes to this one better, enjoying the buttery citrus-berry flavour. Helps her to wash the punch down. One arm over the back of her chair, she sips at her drink while turning to look out the window.

The sky transitions to a mix of plum and lavender. Outside has become an odd blend of Cloudbank’s cityscape and Caelondia’s wilderness. Seeing it strangely makes you feel at peace.

She asks how you’re making do, considering everything. You shrug. It’s hard work but nothing you’re not used to. If anything, what you’re used to was harsher.

She asks what makes things better now. For one, you have the Bastion now, which is already better than the Walls. Second, you have friends. Back then, no one would look sideways at some runt running on the ramparts. Back then, it felt like you were moving for the sake of moving until you inevitably became another body at the bottom of the Wall. But now you have a purpose, you have possibilities. You just have the ability to _have_ things.

Red says she’s glad, and she looks glad. But her eyes show an age that belies her existence, a tired world-weariness. You return the question to her.

Oh, she was never one to really connect with other people. In the sort of place that Cloudbank was, her… reservations or shyness or whatever people wanted to call it made her an oddball. It’s probably why she managed to become close with him. He was never fond of the Selection database either, probably more so than her.

No matter what spotlight was on her or the crowds that milled about, she had always felt alone. Like everything was moving too fast, changing too fast, and she had just given up trying to keep pace. The only person she felt understood her and that she understood was him. Of course, in a capricious city like this it wasn’t to last.

To have the world outside come to reflect what she felt inside, it was just too real, for the lack of a better word. That the one time things won’t change is when things will never again be the same.

It took the world falling down to find your own place, for the walls you built around your heart to start to wear down. But for Red, the world falling down just took more from her.

You lost everything, but you gained all the skies where the Bastion will take you, the world at your fingertips.

She has the world at her fingertips, in the form of a sword, but in gaining that she lost everything.

You both sit in the shadows, in unspoken but mutual understanding. The sky has gone dark outside, making building lights and lamps look like landlocked stars. Carefully, so as not to disturb the silence, you get up from your chair and move around the table. You move the empty glass from her hand and replace it with your own.

Pulling her up, you lead her out of the apartment and to the fireplace. In the Bastion cabin the room is pitch black save for the fire’s glow. The cabin creaks and groans from the wind outside. Zia practices scales on her harp guitar with Zulf humming an appropriate tune to match. Rucks is feeding the squirt, pecker and anklegator.

You tell her that you can’t understand how it must feel for her. You tell her you can understand how hard it can be. When your mother died, you had the thought from time to time about how tall the Walls were, if it would hurt if you fell. You realize how smooth her hands are in yours, with your calluses, chipped nails and crooked fingers.

It felt like it took a long, long time, whole lifetimes over, to be able to find the Bastion. And one day, she’d find her Bastion too. So she couldn’t give up. She had to keep going.

Zia motions at the both of you. She asks if Red likes to sing. Red smiles sadly in a way you can’t figure out and nods. On the other hand, Zia’s smile is bright when she asks if it would be all right if they could sing together before going to bed.

You sit down, leaning back on the anklegator while the pecker and squirt take residence in your lap. The room is warm and cozy, and you can feel yourself drifting away in the soothing harmony of Zia and Red’s voices, accompanied by Zulf and Rucks. Of course, this is a dream, so drifting away means waking up. And so you wake up with something in your head that’s familiar and unfamiliar mingling into something new.

_I set my sails_

_Fly, the winds they will take me_

_Back to my home sweet home_

_River always finds the sea_

_So helplessly_

_Like how you find me_


End file.
